Motivational Stories

You know the days where you have a To Do List as long as your arm? A pile of laundry that could warrant its own zip code? A kitchen that looks like a tornado went through it? Yeah, today was one of those days. She came up to me so sweetly and said, "Mommy, how 'bout you paint my nails, and then I paint yours?!" "How about Mom just paints yours sweetie?" Her face fell. "OK, because you don't have time for me to paint yours too?" Yes, that was one reason for my answer. What if she painted them and the baby woke up? I wouldn't be able to grab him with wet nails. What if my laundry buzzed and I had to switch loads? Can't do that with wet nails. What about my hair that needed to be blow dried? Can't do that with wet nails. The bills I was trying to pay, the calendar I was trying to update, the dishes I needed to wash. You can't do any of those things with wet nails. Right? But her little face was so disapp...

One day Thomas Edison came home and gave a paper to his mother. He told her, “My teacher gave this paper to me and told me to only give it to my mother.” His mother’s eyes were tearful as she read the letter out loud to her child, “Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have enough good teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself.” Many years after Edison’s mother had died, Edison had become one of the greatest inventors of the century. One day he was going through the old closet and he found a folded letter which was given to him by his teacher for his mother. He opened it. The message written on the letter was, “Your son is mentally ill. We can not let him attend our school anymore. He is expelled.” Edison became emotional reading it and then he wrote in his diary, “Thomas Alva Edison was a mentally ill child whose mother turned him into the genius of the century.” Moral: A Mother’s love and upbringing can help change the destiny of a ...

One day a professor entered the classroom and asked his students to prepare for a surprise test.  They waited anxiously at their desks for the test to begin.  The professor handed out the question paper with the text facing down as usual.  Once he handed them all out, he asked his students to turn the page and begin.  To everyone’s surprise, there were no questions, just a black dot in the center of the page. The professor seeing the expression on everyone’s face, told them the following, “I want you to write what you see there.”  The confused students got started on the inexplicable task.  At the end of the class, the professor took all the answer papers and started reading each one of them aloud in front of all the students.  All of them with no exceptions described the black dot, trying to explain its position in the middle of the sheet etc. After all had been read, the classroom was silent.  The professor began to explain, “I am n...

Once upon a time, there was a very lazy man who would always look for an easier way to feed himself. One day while he was searching for something to eat, he saw the fruit farm. He looked around and didn’t see anyone guarding the fruits on the tree, so he quickly decided to steal some fruits. But as soon as he walked into the farm and started to climb the tree, the farmer saw him and started coming at him to catch him. The lazy man saw the farmer coming at him with a stick, he got afraid and ran towards the forest nearby and went inside it to hide. After some time when he felt he started to move on from the forest and while passing through, he saw the wonderful scene. There was a fox. It had only two legs and still was crawling on them happily. The lazy man thought, how can this fox stay alive in such condition?! The fox can’t run, how he must be able to feed himself or stay alive from the threat of other animals. Suddenly, he saw the lion coming towards the fox with a piece of ...

There was a small village by the river. Everyone lived happily and offered regular prayers at the village temple (Church). Once during the monsoon season, it rained heavily. The river started overflowing and flood entered the village. Everyone started to evacuate their homes and set out to go to the safe place. One man ran to the temple (Church). He quickly went to the priest’s room and told him, “The flood water has entered into our homes and it is rising quickly. And water has also started to enter the temple. We must leave the village as in no time it will sink under the water! Everyone has set out to go to the safer place and you must come along”. The priest told the man, “I am not an atheist like you all and I have a full faith in God. I trust the God that he will come to save me. I will not leave the temple, You may go!” So, the man left. Soon, the water level started to rise and reached the waist height. The priest climbed on the desk. After a few minutes, a man with the...

In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10 year old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. “How much is an ice cream sundae?” “50 cents,” replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number of coins in it. “How much is a dish of plain ice cream?” he inquired. Some people were now waiting for a table and the waitress was a bit impatient. “35 cents,” she said brusquely. The little boy again counted the coins. “I’ll have the plain ice cream,” he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and departed. When the waitress came back, she began wiping down the table and then swallowed hard at what she saw. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were 15 cents – her tip.

Once upon a time a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn’t know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed. Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot, and ground coffee beans in the third pot. He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter. The daughter, moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing. After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup. Turning to her he asked. “Daughter, what do you see?” “Potatoes, eggs, and coffee,” she hastily replied. “Look clo...

As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not. He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.” The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were. Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we ...

A man’s favorite donkey falls into a deep precipice. He can’t pull it out no matter how hard he tries. He therefore decides to bury it alive. Soil is poured onto the donkey from above. The donkey feels the load, shakes it off, and steps on it. More soil is poured. It shakes it off and steps up. The more the load was poured, the higher it rose. By noon, the donkey was grazing in green pastures. After much shaking off (of problems) And stepping up (learning from them), One will graze in GREEN PASTURES.

A 24 year old boy seeing out from the train’s window shouted… “Dad, look the trees are going behind!” Dad smiled and a young couple sitting nearby, looked at the 24 year old’s childish behavior with pity, suddenly he again exclaimed… “Dad, look the clouds are running with us!” The couple couldn’t resist and said to the old man… “Why don’t you take your son to a good doctor?” The old man smiled and said…“I did and we are just coming from the hospital, my son was blind from birth, he just got his eyes today.” Every single person on the planet has a story. Don’t judge people before you truly know them. The truth might surprise you.